THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" IN THE LITERATURE AND THE LIFE OF JAPAN AND THE WEST : An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Characteristics of Love in Two Cultures

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" IN THE LITERATURE AND THE LIFE OF JAPAN AND THE WEST : An

Interdisciplinary Analysis of the

Characteristics of Love in Two Cultures

著者 Morris J. Augustine

journal or

publication title

関西大学東西学術研究所紀要

volume 22

page range A27‑A81

year 1989‑03‑31

URL http://hdl.handle.net/10112/16004

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" IN THE LITERATURE AND THE LIFE

OF JAPAN AND THE WEST

‑An Interdisciplinary Analysis

of the Characteristics of Love in Two Cultures

—

by

Morris

J .

Augustine

知匹

Lo碑 in珈 West Lo碑れla.加 Sich hinzugeben ganz und eine Wonne To give ourselves entirely to each other+花の色は Ironically fades Zu filhlen, die ewig sein muss! To feel a joy continuing forever 十うつりにItりな Theflower's color; Ewigl‑lhr Ende wurde Verzweiflung sein, Etemallovef Pictureanend andhesitation・＋いたずらに And I give myself Nein, kein Ende! kein Ende I‑ Spells ruin to lo匹 No! Endless love. +わが身世にふるTorf'R叫f"l'Iflowing time

(Goethe's FIIIISI and Ono no KomRrhi's小野小町，古今和歌集,II, 113) • ながめせしまにAsthe long rains fall

INTRODUCTION

The :first point I wish to make is that the present study does not concern literature purely and simply. Rather, it centers on literature but explores a wider area of discourse: the contrasting notions of and attitudes towards love in the Japanese and Western civil‑ izations. The focus and thrust of my investigation can best be understood by means of a few words about how it began in the first place.

When I :first arrived in Japan fifteen years ago, I had, only a few years previously, :

6

. nished four years of graduate studies in Italy. Naturally, without really trying, I learned a great deal‑mostly, of course, as a nonparticipating, impartial observer

―

about the manner in which Italian men and women, both married and single, went about expressing their

"love" for one another. When a few years later I arrived in Japan, I was overwhelmed by the contrasting manners in which Italians and Japanese went about expressing their love. Our American mode lay somewhere between these two "foreign" manners of thinking about love, and expressing it. To explain the matter as briefly as possible, the Italians were exuberant and unabashed in expressing their attraction to the opposite sex; whereas the Japanese seemed not to express these feelings at all. Young Italian men, both in their facial expressions and in their tender and flamboyant behavior, ex‑ pressed

―

ê^vêⁿ^g^lô^rⁱê^dⁱⁿ^‑^t^hêⁱ^r^fêê^lⁱⁿ^g^s^.^By côⁿ^t^râ^s^t^Jâ^pâⁿê^s^s^mêⁿ^'^s^fâ^cê^sê^x^p^rê^s^sê^d^lⁱ^t^t^lê

feeling, and their behavior too, scarcely revealed the love and affection which they were surely feeling in their hearts. Why?

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28

Between the married couples in our Japanese neighborhood as well, there was little or no show of affection

―

ând yê^t^t^hê^y^were iⁿ^many câ^sê^s^model hû^s^bâⁿ^d^sând wⁱ^vê^s

who did in fact love one another. In the course of fifteen years of research in religion and in literature I have gradually accumulated insights and have pieced together a set of answers. They are of necessity very general, but I believe they rest solidly both on primarily literary and religious texts and on the even more .Primary source of firsthand observation.

Romantic love between men and women is perhaps the central theme in the story and song of every culture

—

^{literate o}^rⁱ^l^lⁱ^tê^râ^tê^.Î^tⁱ^s^no lê^s^s^cêⁿ^t^râ^lⁱⁿ^t^hê^g^rêâ^tê^s^t^lⁱ^tê^râ^r^y

works of both Japan and the West. This of course will surprise no one. Absolutely no theme preoccupies human minds more obsessively. Few if any are more exciting or more beautiful. Absolutely none is more universal. All over the world men and women's bodies‑brains, blood, hormones, organs‑are alike enough to be transfused and transplanted. Yet "love" is strikingly variegated in the literatures

—

ândⁱⁿ^t^hê^dâⁱ^l^y

lives

—

ôf^dⁱ^f^fê^rêⁿ^t^cⁱ^vⁱ^lⁱ^zâ^tⁱôⁿ^s^. And nowhere is this more strikingly evident than in the classical literary canons of Japan and the West.

The present effort certainly does not have as its goal a detailed textual study of love in even the major literary works of two civilizations. To begin with, such a study would be impossible; and secondly, such detailed textual studies of love already exist, made by a whole host of competent scholars in the East and West. The aim of the present effort is to catch a different kind of fish; and so the net to be used must have a very wide mesh. I propose to discuss three things.

First, these existent studies of the notion of love

—

^{from t}^hê^lô^vê^poems o^f^t^hê^t^rôû^bâ^‑

dours to those of Ono no Komachi血dHikaru Genji‑will be used to present two con‑ trasting sketches of ten major characteristics of love in the two literatures

—

replete with examples from the primary sources. I will argue that these two sets of ten characteristics of love constitute, in both civilizations, a single, closely knit, "classical synthesis" which

a

^t^hôû^sâⁿ^dôdd yêâ^r^sâ^gô^pêⁿê^t^râ^tê^d^dêê^p^l^yâ^rⁱ^d^pê^r^vâ^sⁱ^vê^l^yⁱⁿ^tô^t^hê^gêⁿê^râ^l^dⁱ^s^côû^r^sêô^f

出etwo civilizations‑and that it・is the .transformations of these two class'ical syntheses which can explain, better than anything else, the strikingly different unconscious attitudes and notions about love which I observed on the faces and in the manners of the Italians and the Japanese.

Secondly, I wish to propose a very general but double interpretation of these two pervasive classic rhetorics and discourses of love: 1) how they came to be in the first place, and 2) the role they played in the still wider discourse on the nature of the family and of the proper education of children. I will argue that only by considering these wider social functions of the nature of love can we properly understand the nature of both the literary love rhetoric and the deeper, more unconscious, discursive elements which motivate the day‑to‑day attitudes and behavior of the Japanese and the Italians‑and by

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" 29 analogy, of every other individual culture.

Thirdly, our two comparative and contrasting sets of ten characteristics of love in literature will, then, serve as a foundation on the basis of which we can ask the question, Why? Why the difference? And why these particular differences? Finally, an intro‑ ductory word about our method.

Derrida has made much of both "difference", and "differance"1>. Julia Kristeva has supplied some valuable answers with her arguments as to the intertextual nature of all texts2>. Applied to our subject, this means that "love" presents a familiar face

—

^i.e.ⁱ^s

recognizable as possessing certain distinctively Japanese or Western characteristics in any segment of the two canons of literature

—

^because^t^hê^same fâ^vô^rⁱ^tê^"^tê^x^t^s^"^,^w^rⁱ^t^têⁿând

unwritten, are continually used. Woven together in many ways, such "texts" constitute the warp and woof of love in any given culture.

Two other literary philosophers who will guide the course of my study are Michel Foucault and Kenneth Burke. The former is indispensable, both because his last work, Histoire de la Sexualite8> furnishes a schema vast enough to handle our subject, and because "sexuality" is very closely related to our subject of "love". Foucault applies his own previously developed method of tracing the "archaeology" or "genealogy" of sexu‑ ality by examining the various kinds of "pouvoir" or power which historically came together, in a more or less helter‑skelter fashion, to constitute an overall, largely unconscious, ."atmosphere" or "archive" of dominant notions of what is now known as sexuality". While realizing that there were many economic, familial, governmental, and literary forces at work in the formation of Japanese and Western literary notions of love, we shall examine how two such major "powers" especially

—

^{the c}ô^m^pô^sⁱ^tê^rê^lⁱ^gⁱôû^s worldview of each civilization and the structures of the family systems

—

^{were o}^f paramount importance. Kenneth Burke is important because he has shown how closely related the "rhetoric of religion" is to the rhetoric of literature6>. And we shall see how closely related, even in today's postreligious world, are the unconscious attitudes and values associated with literary notions of love and the respective religious traditions of Japan and of the West.

It seems both possible and helpful to meld Foucauld's categories with those of Kristeva and Burke. The still powerful‑though now largely unconscious

—

"atmospheres" or

"archives" out of which modern authors write are still (less and less, but still powerfully) influenced by attitudes formed by Buddhist, Confucian, Christian, and Greco‑Roman re‑ ligious rhetoric and ways of believing and thinking.

In other words, my goal here is to begin to disclose the manner in which the specific worldviews, values, and attitudes of our two cultures have gone together to create two relatively cohesive and coherent, amazingly enduring, notions of love. Our study will, then, sketch the two "geneologies"8> of love. It goes without saying that these structures are always dynamic and changing, but it is often unnoticed that they also possess very tough and relatively stable inner cores. And these cores continue to affect not only the

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30

literary geniuses of the two civilizations in the creation of new literature, but the day‑ to‑day actions of people today.

A comparative approach seems best suited towards getting a peek at the complicated contents of our two largely unconscious archives of love notions‑and at the larger human dynamic of discourse and intertextual influence which governs them both. Since time is limited we will immediately get down to business.

I. THE MAJOR NOTIONS OF LOVE IN JAPANESE AND WESTERN LITERATURE

The very notion of dealing with such a geographically huge and historically long‑ lived entity as "the West" may seem at first glance to be ridiculous. And, from most perspectives, perhaps it is. From our comprehensive comparative perspective, however, such a huge entity‑vague and fragmented though it surely is‑must be used. In order to make it both more useful and more realistic it seems best, in the present context, not to include the vast stretches of Greek and Roman literatures as such, but merely to refer to those portions of them which had deep and lasting effect on the period which we‑

again, somewhat arbitrarily

—

^term^t^hê^"^c^lâ^s^sⁱ^câ^l^"^pê^rⁱô^d^:^from rôû^g^h^l^y^t^hê^têⁿ^t^h^cêⁿ^tû^r^y

A. D. in both cultures.

This of course still leaves us with a very heterogeneous field of literary territory. For our purposes here we limit the meaning of "the W~t" to the area covered not by the Roman empire but approximately that medieval entity known as the Holy Roman Empire. This area of western Europe was kept reasonably unified by both a western Christian worldview and a lingering Islamic threat, even after the Prostestant Reformation and the beginnings of the modern national entities. This civilization was of course built on Greco‑Roman foundations and was transplanted into the American and Australian colonies without a break in the linguistic or religious continuities

—

though, to be sure, with con‑ tinuing evolution.

The best way to begin is to simply present a parallel list of the most important and enduring characteristics of love to be found within the classical literatures of the two civilizations. These characteristics have of course been slowly and painfully isolated during a lengthy period of research and discussion, and the reasons why they and not others were chosen will be unpacked in the course of the presentation. Still, they remain, in the end, merely one scholar's opinion. Some of them have not been and will not be accepted by others as deserving such prominence. Also, in order to the gain proper focus for our treatment it will be necessary to bracket out of our treatment

—

^for

the time being

—

two obvious and extremely important facets of the broad notions of love in our two civilizations: the great variety and the continual development of notions of love in both cultures.

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" 31 Regarding the first we cannot be distracted from our real focus

—

the central, domi‑ nant cores of the two love rhetorics

—

^by^t^hêê^x^pê^c^tê^d^câ^cô^p^hôⁿ^yô^f^{many n}ô^tⁱôⁿ^s

found in both literary and nonliterary sources which contradict elements of these two core lists. We will argue that not only a broad but central rhetoric of love exists and remains dominant in both cultures throughout a thousand years, but that most of the elements of these core characteristics are probably much older, often prehistorical.

It is to be expected that literally everything we say of love in the literature of either Japan or the West can be contradicted by a thousand examples to the contrary. Not only every society but every individual has his or her own, continually changing, idea of what love is. But we will focus on a single bundle of characteristic notions and attitudes which seem to be the most pervasive and central We will argue that such a core of central notions is still very much alive‑though, as we will see, under powerful attack‑in the living ethos of contemporary Japanese and Western civilizations. This central tradition in both cultures we will call

—

ât^t^hê^rⁱ^s^kô^fâ^t^fⁱ^r^s^t^seemingârbitrary

—

^their^two "^c^l^a^s^sⁱ^c^a^l

syntheses" on love. Thus in the West we remove from our focus the greater part of Greek, Roman, and early medieval literature and focus on the tradition which began with the loose synthesis generally known as Courtly Love in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Similarly, in Japan we will begin with the Golden Age of early Heian literature and argue that notions of and attitudes towards love which began then continued‑with many a transformation

―

ûp t^h^rôû^g^h^t^hê^tⁱ^mêô^f^Zêâ^mⁱ^,ând t^h^rôû^g^h^t^hê Tokugawa's Genroku Period, up until the present day. In both cases, of course, an overriding preoccupation which deeply influences our study is the question: Whither tomorrow? Have the un‑ precedented changes of the twentieth century completely destroyed these syntheses? Maimed them? Or is there just a little more development than in your average century? In our conclusion we address these difficulties directly.

As to the second facet to be bracketed out of the focus of our attention (the continual development of notions of love), we do not in any way intend, when we bravely state our ten central characteristics, either to ignore or deny the incontrovertable fact that in no two periods were these ten exactly the same. Quite the contrary. Of course they continually changed and developed. But the present context allows only for a passing treatment of the most important of these developments. To do more would distract from our present project: to marshal evidence that a central love ethos did and still does to some extent exist in each of the two civilizations, to comparatively describe these them, and to explore the human dynamic which produced them both. Once such a necessary broad focus is achieved, and the proper conclusions drawn therefrom, there will be time enough, in future treatments, to give the developmental aspect its proper consideration.

Without further ado, then, we will argue that the following double list of ten charac‑ teristics gets to the heart of the matter. There is, of course, nothing sacred about these two lists. They are only approximate and deliberately contrasting breakdowns of major

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I

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elements. They are stated in this manner simply as a convenient entree into two love ethos which contain not only ideas but much more subtle values and attitudes. In both cas.es these elements are largely unconscious until brought to light by comparison with a totally different culture.

Also, it must be carefully noted that this double list is not about some sort of "love in general". Rather, it concerns a sharply focused object: it portrays the central notions of and approaches to passionate romantic (primarily premarital or extramarital) heter‑ osexual love as they appear in the literature and life of Japan and the West during the past thousand years. This focus on literature in order to gain a purchase on a civili‑ zation's notions of love also has an important‑and perhaps controve四ial‑presupposition. It presumes that a people's literature is in general an accurate reflection of its wordview. It presumes that by studying the literature of a given culture one can gain valid if general i~sight into its ethos, or values and favorite moods and ways of acting. That is, in literature one can discern typical modes of both thinking about central aspects of life like love and favorite manners by which they are actually carried out.

The following lists then are more than a sketch of love themes found in classical litera‑ ture written hundreds of years ago. They are also believed to be the best entree into the two civilization's deepest and most long‑lasting nonliterary modes of approaching the ro‑ mantic and passionate phase of the man‑woman relationship. Through them it is possible to go a long way towards disclosing both growth‑curves and the suprizing amount of continuity in people's ways looking at love.

JAPAN蕊ELOVE WESTERN LOVE

1. Typically, love is the glorious flower of human life 1. Typically, "real" love is forever.

2. Love is "longing''(如い恋），foran absent lover 2. Though a hard master, love ennobles the human heart 3. Neither如inor any other word directly eAIJI""""" love 3. "True" love has a tran町,andEntor divine dimer直on 4. Love is "to endure‑remember" (しのふ忍ぷー偲ぷ） 4. Love is not, in苧匹，physicalattraction; it is self‑forgetfwl 5. Better than words betw紐nlovers is siJence・‑and secrecy 5. Love involves a continual struggle between its. Ovidean, or phys. 6. The male is dominflnt. once the woman freely gives her love ical and ironic, and its Platonic‑Christian, or ideal, elements 7. But the woman's love is stronger, so strong that she is 6. Man‑woman love is a first step towards an all‑embracing love

helpless under its spell, "as in a dream" (夢中） 7. It is to be verbally exprto!itd, directly to the beloved. 8. The flower of love has four乎和ns;and ends quickly 8.ltistobete巫tl>oedpassionately, graphically, insi吋Pntly 9. Passionate love is in the end vain and empty of meaning 9. Woman is the nobler lover; man learns love as her "servant"

10. Love is permeated with the pathos (哀れ）of its fragility 10. Real love is in蕊 neethe same before and after maniage

Whereas love is seen in both cultures as basically a positive and extremely important part of human life, the first thing one notes in the above list is the startling contrast. In Japanese literature "love" (如

0

passes quickly, whereas in the West [love is "forever". In the West love should be verbally expressed; in Japan it should not. In the West the woman's love is generally seen as purer, more restrained

—

ⁱⁿ^many ways^nobler

—

^than

the man's; in Japan it is the man's love which is all these things, and more. In the West love itself is pregnant with positive connotations. In its many forms it is the pivotal virtue governing all human relations: the keystone of ideal humanity, not just of man•

woman relations. In traditional Japan notions of "love" (koi, 恋orai, 愛）are expressed

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" 33 in much more negative terms: though seen as surpassingly beautiful, it not only passes quickly but is dangerous and deceptive.

Are these contrasts real? I will maintain that, yes, they are

—

êither^côⁿ^s^cⁱôû^s^l^yô^rûⁿ^‑

consciously‑not only pervasively present in the daily life of Japanese and West~rn people today, they are also clearly visible in the literatures and in the daily lives of both peoples a thousand years ago. The intriguing mystery of this cross‑cultural phenomenon is,

、

'Why?" Why is this amazing quality of endurance clearly discernible in a central bundle of strikingly contrasting notions and attitudes regarding love, in spite of many revolution‑ ary changes in every aspect of life and thought? Answering this "Why?" will be one of our major goals.

The next thing we notice is that the above list appears be‑and of course is

—

^ex-

tremely general in scope. Perhaps it also seems to be‑but actually is not‑culturally biased in favor of the West. Western love might appear to be painted white and Japanese love grey. But this impression will be dispelled as two truths are gradually disclosed. First, "love" as the word is used in Western society and literature covers an area im‑ mensely broader than the young, passionate, romantic love which is the focus of literature everywhere, and also is the focus of this analysis. As we will briefly discuss in the closing remarks, the word "love" (amor, amour, liebe, etc:.) in the West has deep religious and fa‑ tnilial implications, nuances, and allusions, which cannot really be disassociated purely and simply from the brilliant hues of romantic love. They influence it in very important ways. Japanese koi on the other hand, corresponds very closely with the phenomenon of passionate heterosexual love seen from a more or less purely mundane point of view. Love underpins the religious an9‑familial systems of the West; in Japan it does not. We shall see that Japanese religious and family systems contain every bit as noble, profound, and exalted notions regarding selfless consideration for and service of spouse, children, neighbor, country, and一四ecially—family (or ie, 家）. The difference is that these are not linguistically connected with "love", as is the case in the West. Stated simply, the total "pie" of man‑woman relations

—

însideând oû^t^sⁱ^dêô^f^mâ^r^rⁱâ^gê^‑ⁱ^s^cû^t^vê^r^y^dⁱ^f^fê^rêⁿ^t^l^y

in the two civilizations. This has very important results for the manner in which passion‑ ate young love is viewed in the two cultures.

The result of these differences is that passionate man‑woman love in Japan is treated in a very specialized manner

—

^{and s}ô^mâⁿⁱ^fê^s^t^sîmportant

—

relatively negative‑aspects of that relationship which receive little attention in its typical treatments within Western literature. Only when the subject of love is seen against the background of the mother‑ culture's history, family structure, and overall worldview will we gradually but clearly see that all of the riches of the human heart are developed in both civilizations under consideration‑and if it is thus in these two very different cultures then surely it is also thus in all or most other cultures as well.

But as we look more carefully at this list we will also note striking similarities.

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34

Literary embodiments of both koi and "love" contain sentiments of great tenderness, and self‑forgetful consideration for the beloved. On the other hand, both notions are often coupled with cries expressing the pain involved in longing, or unrequited love, in aban‑ donment, in jealousy, and at the suffering caused by the excesses to which passion drives the lover.

Another similarity between the two notions is the schizoid nature of both "love" and koi. On the one hand the unadulterated joy and pleasure of sexual union often shows itself in individual poems of both literatures; on the other hand sentiments of the highest self‑denying benevolence towards even an unfaithful or unworthy lover also abound. To put the matter differently, in both civilizations love is at one time sheer physical ecstasy, and at another time pure selfless devotion of the heart.

All these similarities and contradictions contained within both notions of love will be examined in greater detail. But one final contradiction, already mentioned, must be clearly underlined before both sets of ten characteristics can be properly explored: each characteristic can be "refuted" with many contradictory examples from both literature and life. This should surprise no one, for each of the twenty characteristics is nothing more than a prevailing current within a veritable sea of contradictory attitudes, values, and notions. Each is simply the strongest among hundreds of often mutually contradictory and countervailing notions and opinions. The amazing endurance of these core charac・

teristics seems to come from each being bonded with the others into a mutually reinforcing whole: an ethos of love.

This dynamic becomes easier to understand when we consider how all of us as individuals in the course of our lives go though a whole gamut of shifting attitudes towards and notions of love. But most of us eventually work through to a more or less coherent and enduring posture as we reach higher stages of maturity. And this stage is one which is more or less consistent with that of our closest neighbors and friends. Love is a social thing and the individual forms his or her mature stance in conjunction with the prevailing views of the culture.

Thus it is that each of the ten characteristics in either culture, can be "refuted" with citations to the contrary of a hundred poems and stories, and still be authentic. One reason is that, for all their endurance and pervasiveness, these characteristics are in their most fundamental nature simply established ways of thinking and acting: tatema.e (建て前）. They are cultural forms produced out of notions, attitudes, and procedures which have proven particularly successful

—

ând^sôâ^rê^pâ^r^tⁱ^cû^lâ^r^l^y^beloved

—

ⁱⁿ^hâⁿ^d^lⁱⁿ^gôⁿê

of human beings'most powerful instincts. They do not always work, however, and so many alternative ones are constantly being touted, tried

―

ând u^sûâ^l^l^y^rê^jê^c^tê^d^.

For example, Japanese love poetry, though in general of a relatively pessimistic bent, can be shown to be often marvelously optimistic and lyrical. And Western love is often pessimistic, but the opposite moods are predominant. Women's love in Japan can be

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THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" 35 shown to be as noble or nobler than men's, as Western women can be seen to be painted as selfish, deceitful, and seductive. All this tangle of contradictions can seem to be a refutation of our whole project‑especially when seen on the background of the kaleido‑ scope of continually changing tastes, social conditions, and developments of many kinds. Certainly, there is no reason why one cannot choose to emphasize change rather than endurance. But this in no way nullifies the legitimacy of our project which takes all such change into consideration at every step, while pursuing the nature and causes of characteristics which survive change.

The plain fact remains that the central love ethos sketched above

—

composed of dis‑ tinct attitudes, values, and favored notions‑‑can be seen resurfacing so often in both societies and in both literatures as to constitute an important working part of the two civilizations'identities. There are in every civilization more or less prevalent rules as to precisely how men and women are expected to fall in love, mate, and reproduce. Our goal is to use the most beautiful literary expressions of these expectations in Japan and in the West, to explore comparatively the human dynamic regulating how love among these two peoples remains the same while it continually changes.

A. The Central Characteristics of Love in Japanese Literature

Before we begin to look at the vocabulary used to describe heterosexual love in Ja‑ panese literature, our :first characteristic invites us to take a look at the still larger picture of love as painted in such classics as the Man'yoshu (万葉集）， the Genji Monogatari

（源氏物語）， theKokinwakashu (古今和歌集）， andthe like.

1. The :first of our ten charact面sticsis properly love as the flower of adult life: that particularly rich and complex positive quality of love in the Japanese classics. This may be called both a naturalistic and a religious picture of passionate man‑woman love. In a civilization where the human being's oneness with nature lies at the very center of its worldview, the belief that love is "natural" has deep religious connotations. In both its myths and teachings the native animistic religious system

―

ôⁿ^l^y^lôô^sê^l^y^câ^l^lê^d^S^hⁱⁿ^tô

（神道） since it originally has so many different gods, myths, and forms

—

teaches that human beings form a living continuum with not only the fauna and flora but with the mountains and fertile plains which support them. And everywhere male and female love is beautiful, strong, and fertile.

Not only do the gods inhabit mountains and valleys; the very mountains and their stones are "alive". The Kojiki (古事記）一that amalgam of myth and history which served Japan in the same unifying and identity‑bestowing capacity that the Hebrew Bible did for the ancient Jews

—

^begins^wⁱ^t^hÎ^zâⁿâ^mⁱând I^zâⁿâ^gⁱând t^hêⁱ^r^lô^vê^‑^mâ^kⁱⁿ^g^.^This

highly ritualistic creation‑myth teaches that their mountains and rice bearing valleys were born of the same divine parents as their emperor, and themselves

―

^born o^f^a^l^o^vⁱⁿ^g

union wherein the male was completely dominant.

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36

It is not surprising then that the wonder of man‑woman love kept the same sacred mystery in literature which it manifested in that first divine pairing7>. Nor should it come as a surprise to see mirrored in the greatest love stories and poetry the same cycle of magnificent flowering, fruitfulness, withering, and death observed year after year on those brotherly mountains and in those sisterly fields.

河の上のいつ藻の花の Kawa no ue no Itsumo no hana no Itsumo itsumo Kimase waga Seko toki jikemeyamo

何時も何時も来ませわが背子時じけめやも Like the duckweed flowers

Always trailing in the river My lover, always coming back Could never come

In the wrong season. (Man'yoshu, IV, 491) In the Genji Monogatari the rich and complex panorama of love as the heartbeat of nature is revealed. Hikaru Genji is not only the man par excellence; he is the perfect divinely ordained prince, who only by accident and not by birth and desert fails to be‑ come the emperor

―

â^s^hⁱ^s^fâ^t^hê^rând son wê^rê^.Ând a^s^sôⁿând fâ^t^hê^rô^f^dⁱ^vⁱⁿê^l^yêⁿ^‑

dowed sons of the goddess Ameratesu, an emperor in every way but name, he is also the perfect lover.

Genji's prowess and prerogatives as a lover are nowhere more brilliantly portrayed, perhaps, than when the heat of his royal love drives him into karmic excess. But this excess must be, and in time is, duly atoned for. Even though he bestows his all‑too‑fertile love in places where taboos are strongest

—

in the bed of his imperial father's wife Fujitsubo8>, and on the barely adolescent Murasaki whom he has brazenly kidnaped and adopted9>‑he resolutely bears the karmic repercussions and regains the favor ̲of the gods during his exile in Suma and Akashi.

The positive element of love, deeply embedded in Japanese culture, is seen most clearly perhaps in the impeccable grace, the splendor of dress, the perfection of the poetry, scents, and manners which accompany the courtship and lovemaking of "the Shining Prince". Just as the cherry blossoms of spring symbolize the marvelous beauty by which nature opens its cycle of fertility, so Genji's polished accomplishments symbolize the ideals of Japanese love. Genji's power over women is tempered by his gentle consideration and his responsibility both for his amorous adventures and for the women who one・after another fall under the spell of his charms.

We will note below how the poems of the Kokinshu too reflect the same exultant mood of glorying in the wonders of new found love‑even while anticipating the more sinister side of the coin of love as, like the flowers of spring, it leads inexorably through summer towards fall and the death of winter.

But there is another reason why the Kokinshu deserves our attention. Ki no Tsura・

yuki's Preface to this first and greatest of the anthologies compiled at the emperor's coin‑

(12)

THE STRUCTURE OF "LOVE" 37 mand shows clearly that such literary expressions of the human heaヰ areintended to be more than mere nice sentiments and clever words. Rather, such words are born directly out of the human heart. As such, they express a civilization's deepest perceptions of the nature of love. Hence, there is no better source to which we can turn for an accurate mirror of the ways of the human heart as it was, and still is, understood by the Japanese.

The seeds of Japanese poetry lie in the human heart and grow into leaves of ten thousand words. Many things happen to the people of this world, and all that they think and feel is given ex‑ pression in description of things they see and hear. When we hear the warbling of the mountain thrush in the blossoms or the voice of the frQg in the water, we know every living being has its songlO).

There can be no clearer expression of the manner in which the animistic worldview of early Japan

―

^which uⁿⁱ^t^e^s men and women and all their feelings with the whole of nature

—

ênters^dⁱ^rê^c^t^l^yⁱⁿ^tô^t^hê^môô^d^s^,^t^hêê^mô^tⁱôⁿ^s^,ând t^hê^vê^r^y^pôê^tⁱ^c^sô^fⁱ^t^s^lⁱ^tê^râ^tû^rê^.

According to this view literature is in its essence simply the outpouring "in ten thousand words" of the abundance of nature's beauty. The poet, in intimate union with the rest of a divine and living nature, hears, sees, and otherwise experiences. Then he translates it all into words of truth.

Though the notion of love in Japanese literature is clearly positive in the manner sketched here, that is only one side of it. In the other characteristics we begin to see how thoroughly saturated it is with sadness, even grief, that such magnificent feelings last only an instant and can lead to so much loneliness and despair.

The analysis of the next four of our ten characteristics must begin with a close look at the words chosen to express love. It is a good place to begin, because the manner in which this vocabulary divides itself and highlights the major categories al).d aspects of man‑woman love could scarcely be more different than the way words for love are chosen and emphasized in the West. The next four of our ten characteristics are bound up with this linguistic aspect.

2. The oldest and most pervasive word for passionate male‑female love is koi (恋） or "longing". A good example of the ubiquitous "love as longing" motif running through‑ out the length and breadth of Japanese literature is found at its very beginning: in the Man'yoshu. Almost every poem in Book Four

—

the section set aside for love poems‑

clearly expresses love as longing. I give as an example Princess Nukata's beautiful and lonely poem of longing‑love for her Lord:

君待つとわが恋をれば Kimi matsu to waga koi woreba waga yado no sudare ugokashi Aki no kaze fuku.

わが屋戸のすだれ動かし秋の風吹く Waiting for my lord,

I sit here longing While the reed screen Which shades my door Rattles in the autumn winds:

(13)

38

Following closely behind "koi" are a number of alli~d words like shinofu (しのふ），

or "admiring", shinobu (しのぶ）， "yearning", "remembering", or "enduring", onwu (思う）， or"to think lovingly on", matsu (待つ）， or"to wait for", uruwashi (麗し），"graceful", or "lovely", and utsukushi (美し）， "beautiful",and the like.

"Longing" or koi

―

â^s^wê^l^lâ^s^most o^f^t^hêô^t^hê^r^words jû^s^tlisted

—

^implies^by i^t^s

very nature that the lover is absent. Love in any society's literature sings the plaints of separated lovers longing for each other

―

^bû^tⁱⁿ^c^lâ^s^sⁱ^câ^l^Jâ^pâⁿⁱ^tⁱ^s^t^hê^cêⁿ^t^râ^lând dê^。

finitive perspective. A part of the reason is, as we shall see below in 4., the delicate sense of enryo (遠慮） ("restraint‑endurance") andしのぶ("longing"or "enduring") which typically prevents lovers from expressing their feelings verbally in face‑to‑face encounter.

3. None of these various words used to express passionate man‑woman love do so directly and unequivocally. A striking characteristic of them all is that they convey their tender and passionate message in an indirect and at least partially ambivalent manner.

Koi and its verb form, kou is often used to express longing for someone's absent village, or for beautiful autunm colors fondly remembered. Sometimes these evocations are intri‑ cate. The above‑mentioned verb, shinofu or "admire"

―

^w^hê^t^hê^rô^rⁿô^tⁱ^t^sô^b^jê^c^tⁱ^sâ

lover

―

also carries the connotation of the cognate word, shinobu "bearing up under" or

"enduring"m. This important notion will be discussed more fully below under 4. It would seem that the ancient Japanese were so partial to the notion that love involved secretly enduring rather than revealing and giving expression to their feelings of love that they gave it many different shades of meaning, any one of which has the ability of indirectly evoking an "epiphany" of love. Shinofu's first connotation was that loving someone or something involved a restrained enduring or bearing up in silent wonder under the attraction of the desirable thing. Nakanishi cites the example of the Man'yoshu's poem of Princess Nukada (I, 16) expressing her "admiration" (shinofu of the colored leaves on the fall mountainside:

秋山の木の葉を見ては Akiyama no

Ki no ha wo mite wa Momichi wo ha Torite so shinofu

黄葉をば取りてそ上竺全 Gazing on the leaves

Of the trees in the fall mountains I pluck a yellow leaf

And stand in silent admiration

Here the primary connotation is clearly and simply that of admiration and is expressed by shinoju. But a second element enters when the admiration and restraint have as their object a lover. Then it is accompanied with a strong added connotation usually expressed by the cognate shin゜如， that of not openly

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especially in the initial stages

—

expressing one's love in words, even in the form of a love poem sent to an absent lover. Still further, even after love had been mutually acknowledged and even consummated, their love is still restrained in that ideally it is not expressed openly and in words.